Since stumbling into Foster Care Land three years ago, I've been plugged into the Blog-o-sphere. I had dabbled in Blogs at the suggestion of a friend while going through an illness. I didn't find many blogs devoted to my condition and I manage an update on that blog maybe once a year. (Sadly...)
I've not written very much about fertility on this blog. I've struggled with if I want to share this piece of my puzzle with the world. Right now it seems important to share it as I've met many people who come to be foster parents and adoptive parents due to fertility issues. And its one of the more complicated pieces for me and I imagine a lot of others out there.
I've never explored my fertility. No doctor had ever told me I can't have children. We had held off because we wanted to have a solid marriage to add children to and then I got sick and the medication I was on was very dangerous and we were counseled on preventing a pregnancy while I was on it.
The ironic part is that a pregnancy may send my illness into remission. (Right now it is stable meaning not getting worse but also not gone.) It could also cause a flare up. Somewhat of a scary proposition for me.
So after a year of irregular cycles, possible chemical pregnancies (a very early miscarriage), and no actual pregnancy I decided to explore what is going on. I really feel like I just want to answer the question rather than always wonder if I could have had a pregnancy if I decided that it was really important to me.
Thus far, I'm not sure how I feel about having a pregnancy. I just want to be a Mom. I have a really hard time believing that it would make a difference in the way I would love a child if I birthed a child verses adopted one. I don't say that to mean there aren't differences in biological and adopted children or their experiences. Just that I believe my heart and my ability to be a parent would be no different.
When I began this journey into researching adoption and adoption through foster care, I pretty much stopped reading blogs that didn't pertain to some facet of the adoption triangle.
The other day a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to Mommy Blog. Ya know, a blog written by a Mom. That's it. Not Trauma Mom or Adoptive Mom or Foster Mom or First Mom. Just a Mom. With good advice about focusing on the important things.
And as I read I thought, huh? What would life be like just being a Mom, no additional title. Would I have a blog? Would I have enough interesting things to say as a Mom without a Pre-Fix? I concluded- probably not!
I've not written very much about fertility on this blog. I've struggled with if I want to share this piece of my puzzle with the world. Right now it seems important to share it as I've met many people who come to be foster parents and adoptive parents due to fertility issues. And its one of the more complicated pieces for me and I imagine a lot of others out there.
I've never explored my fertility. No doctor had ever told me I can't have children. We had held off because we wanted to have a solid marriage to add children to and then I got sick and the medication I was on was very dangerous and we were counseled on preventing a pregnancy while I was on it.
The ironic part is that a pregnancy may send my illness into remission. (Right now it is stable meaning not getting worse but also not gone.) It could also cause a flare up. Somewhat of a scary proposition for me.
So after a year of irregular cycles, possible chemical pregnancies (a very early miscarriage), and no actual pregnancy I decided to explore what is going on. I really feel like I just want to answer the question rather than always wonder if I could have had a pregnancy if I decided that it was really important to me.
Thus far, I'm not sure how I feel about having a pregnancy. I just want to be a Mom. I have a really hard time believing that it would make a difference in the way I would love a child if I birthed a child verses adopted one. I don't say that to mean there aren't differences in biological and adopted children or their experiences. Just that I believe my heart and my ability to be a parent would be no different.
Several people in my life have asked me if I would go the fertility treatment route. Well meaning friends and family seeing the sadness and stress of us being foster parents suggest this as if that would be less stressful or sad. I feel like its trading one kind of stress for another. And what if it doesn't work? At least when I'm not really worrying about it, I have some sense of control (ok it a false sense, but its a sense). That's not to say that I'm opposed to it or judge others. Each person's decisions about what kind of family and how they want to create it is just that, their decision. I'm just not sure I want to decide anything. Or sign up for medication.
Its hard to explain the experience of being chronically ill if you have not been through it. Its a type of trauma. It was not severe trauma but definitely stressful and left residual triggers and emotions. I was seeing seven specialists at one point. I had a medicine cabinet full of pill bottles each with their own side effects. I had to feel worse to get better. And while I am grateful that I had physicians who were willing to work together to get me to a place where I could function again, I dread being back in a specialist office. I don't know if I will be able to get over that. Luckily Hubby is supportive and has allowed me the space to come to terms with all that is swirling around in my head.
Its hard to explain the experience of being chronically ill if you have not been through it. Its a type of trauma. It was not severe trauma but definitely stressful and left residual triggers and emotions. I was seeing seven specialists at one point. I had a medicine cabinet full of pill bottles each with their own side effects. I had to feel worse to get better. And while I am grateful that I had physicians who were willing to work together to get me to a place where I could function again, I dread being back in a specialist office. I don't know if I will be able to get over that. Luckily Hubby is supportive and has allowed me the space to come to terms with all that is swirling around in my head.
The doctor feels there is something going on and that its not attributed to stress like I thought. At the same time though she didn't seem super concerned about a serious problem so I'll take my cue from her. I go this week for some further testing.
Good luck! We did foster - then adopt - but never ended up having a biological child. We had just started exploring the why of not getting pregnant when our foster - now adopted - daughters came. Ended up having a hysterectomy last fall, so the biological children will never come. Every once in a while, it makes me a little bit sad that I didn't have a biological child, but I just became a mom in a different way. A hard path - not physically with a pregnancy - but with the foster system. Unfortunately, there are plenty of kids in the world that need good parents and a same place to live. In many ways, losing a foster child that you have loved and cared for greatly is like a miscarriage or a loss of a biological child. The circumstances are just different.
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